I know about where everyone stands on physical property rights, but in a capitalist society, how do you think intellectual property rights should be protected?

6/18/2011 1:45:14 PM

less than they currently are in America

like patents ought to be harder to get and to effectively renew, and copyrights ought to once again require registration and the deposition of two copies at the Library of Congress, and they should effectively exist "for limited Times" as in about a generation rather than longer than most people's lifetimes

also copyright violation ought to be seen as less severe than theft and no longer compared to it, because with a copyvio it's not like you're depriving the owner of what it is being copied

6/18/2011 2:30:59 PM

^.

With respect to violations, at the very least, a distinction needs to be made between commercial and non-commercial infringement.

6/18/2011 7:16:09 PM

I once attended a small business conference...the Chinese speaker said that China's view on Copyright Laws was that they have a "Right to Copy"

/coolstorybro

6/18/2011 7:33:19 PM

I read too much Ars Technica

I think the entire thing should be gutted and start from scratch, and going after software patents like it's the black plague.

Admittedly, complications arise by the fact that the US economy is on net benefited by international copyright and patents, but it's the rich that reap these rewards. Not us.

6/18/2011 7:59:21 PM

Patents have outlived their usefulness. Copyrights last way too long. The patent system should be scrapped entirely, copyrights should last 15 years.

6/18/2011 8:49:57 PM

I don't think they've outlived their usefulness if we

1) Stopped giving out patents on shit that simply shouldn't be a patent
and
2) They have a more limited time frame.

I worked in the semi-conductor industry and we had entire departments dedicated to reverse engineering competitors products....what we did with what we saw I'm not entirely sure but you can believe there were innovative circuits that we'd just steal wholesale if it weren't for patent protections.

6/18/2011 10:47:09 PM

Quote :

"I worked in the semi-conductor industry and we had entire departments dedicated to reverse engineering competitors products....what we did with what we saw I'm not entirely sure but you can believe there were innovative circuits that we'd just steal wholesale if it weren't for patent protections."

I entirely see your point, but even still I'm not convinced that the market would be worse off for consumers without patents. I think we all agree that the elimination of patents would ignite a cold war of sorts within many industries because the incentive for both copying and hiding one's own design features would increase dramatically. But ultimately what would that result in? You would have downward pressure on the amount of investment into innovation due to the fact that designs could be copied, but then again, the ability to mix-and-match other designs without fear could lead to greater possibilities and possibly greater incentive to invest in research.

It's certainly unclear what kind of electronic products that system would lead to in 10 years. One effect could be to homogenize the available options, since everyone would be copying each other. Maybe more demands would be placed on government funded and open research. It's still not clear to me if the power of processors would increase more with or without patents. That's a fascinating and very difficult question.

Patents are not an inalienable right. From the very beginning of the system they were recognized as a tool to help obtain the objective - which was encouraging innovation to help the economy and improve our way of life. Unfortunately, no one thinks of it this way. We have too much of a backlog that is increasing perpetually of patents that the star American companies feel to their core are "theirs".

6/18/2011 11:11:20 PM

If we didn't have patents, inventors would just keep the details of their inventions under wraps as long as possible; trade secrets would blossom, and our society would be less open as a result.

6/19/2011 1:15:14 AM

^that's only one side of the coin, patents come with their own problems, namely that preventing others from building on them stifles invention. Much of the growth in technology is owed to the intellectual property modifications made around computer software and hardware during its infancy. Really, how can some arbitrary length of time of inefficient monopoly pricing be the best solution?

I'll post again to give a more detailed explanation of my own ideas on the subject.

[Edited on June 19, 2011 at 1:26 AM. Reason : ]

6/19/2011 1:24:54 AM

the point is that for a certain period of time, the inventor ought to have the exclusive right to profit from the invention, so that the investor of substantial resources into R&D has a shot at recouping it before the masses who didn't contribute at all get to use the openly published invention, and then anyone can benefit

then again the original 17-year period of patent protection seems rather long for the pace of technological improvement, and patent trolls and evergreening are serious problems

6/19/2011 2:39:58 AM

You're stating the problem and assuming a solution. The problem is that we need to compensate and encourage people for coming up with ideas. I think an arbitrary fixed time of monopoly pricing is extremely heavy handed. Ill give an example. Suppose I can research idea X, idea X will save people money over the long term, however it will not pay for itself after the arbitrary limited time of monopoly pricing. This would mean that although idea X is a net benefit for everyone, I should not research it.

6/19/2011 9:47:08 AM

wormhole time

message_topic.aspx?topic=606511

6/19/2011 10:09:44 AM

^^that sounds like a subject for publicly-funded scientific research

6/19/2011 10:40:13 AM

The main form of intellectual property protection IS trade secret, and the biggest benefit is first-move advantage. Since it takes so long to get a patent, companies rely on trade secrets to protect technology when they first release it. By the time they get the patent, they have already reaped the rewards of first move advantage.

If patents go away, it won't affect innovation in any way. In fact, there are plenty of countries with weaker patent and copyright protections that still manage to have innovative companies.

The main point is that patents aren't the only thing or even the main thing encouraging innovation (if they do that at all).

[Edited on June 19, 2011 at 10:49 AM. Reason : .]

6/19/2011 10:45:26 AM

^ some companies give bonuses to engineers that patent things that help the company... not much but it is something.

6/19/2011 10:02:26 PM

it's the least they could do for having the engineers assign all IP to their corporate headmasters

6/19/2011 10:04:16 PM

Quote :

"If patents go away, it won't affect innovation in any way. In fact, there are plenty of countries with weaker patent and copyright protections that still manage to have innovative companies."

Yes it would, it would affect innovation in a major way.

6/20/2011 12:12:22 AM

I feel it's a question of how it would affect innovation, and even more, how innovation is driven now and the problems with it. If we were to get rid of patents, I don't think it would lower the drive of inventors as much as it would lower drive to fund these inventors commercially. For some reason people tend to think of our current system as a gold standard, I don't really think it is. The fact that it is driven by the market means that it faces the problems and slowness that the market can bring.

6/20/2011 12:50:28 AM

This is what is fantastic about the modern day Soap Box. I see about 4 slightly different arguments in here and not a single one of them making an attempt to support the assertion with even a modicum of supporting arguments from some other source. But maybe 'that' Soap Box died long ago and the only point here is to out talk the person on the other end of the wire?

[Edited on June 20, 2011 at 7:06 AM. Reason : .]

6/20/2011 7:04:33 AM

The Soap Box is an internet forum. It exists solely for entertainment purposes. Searching wikipedia citations is not entertainment.

6/20/2011 9:41:44 AM

I don't know what you are talking about, I've been here a good bit longer than you and I don't remeber any way that it was drastically different. I started the thread simply asking for ideas, not written plans with cited sources. If you want something explained in more detail or have some issue with something someone said, you should quote them and take it up with them, you know, the way debates have been held on this board for decades. But I'm just betting that you're bitter and that once again you just want to whine and moan about "debate style" rather than having a real debate.

6/20/2011 9:48:41 AM

Here is how the soap box works:

The OP starts with a sentence of a half-baked question about what they saw in the news.

Person A shoots from the hip and writes whatever the heck they think about some topic loosely connected to the OP.

Person B, seeing an opportunity, asks A to clarify about some particular point they know to be factually incorrect.

Person A clarifies and injects more personal opinion about said wrongly held belief.

Then Person B uses Wikipedia to disprove. Then continues on about whatever the heck they think about the topic or a topic close enough, eventually going to far and claiming more than what they actually know because they just had a half-baked idea consistent with their world view.

Cycle continues.

It's actually rather entertaining, provided that the people talking have some genuine knowledge. The demographic of TSB tends to be
1. old compared to college students
2. relatively well educated
The reality is that we all know some things really well and also think we know something else but don't really know it. So we go on about both until someone corrects us. The alternative is the "troll performance" threads, where troll stands up in front of a crowd and engages in a war of attrition to see how long they can deflect rational refutations of their wrongheaded world view, like arronburro in the global warming and abortion threads.

6/20/2011 10:20:46 AM

I've kind of tried to break that cycle in this thread and have a bit more of a discussion than a debate, I've refrained from posting too much that might "draw the battle lines". Although I may have missed that mark on my last relevant post to the thread.

[Edited on June 20, 2011 at 10:56 AM. Reason : ]

6/20/2011 10:55:55 AM

Quote :

"The reality is that we all know some things really well and also think we know something else but don't really know it. So we go on about both until someone corrects us."

The difference is that some people think they know things even when they know they've never looked into it.

6/20/2011 12:57:36 PM

^ We all, at some point, think we know something without looking into it. Sometimes we all validly think that something we know extends into some other, slightly different, area. It may or may not. The ridiculous end of the spectrum is just plain guessing, which actually takes talent to do convincingly provided that you really know nothing about the matter.

6/20/2011 1:26:13 PM

The issue of intellectual property rights boils down to a philosophical question, so "sources" wouldn't necessarily be helpful, just like one wouldn't need sources to claim that murdering people is wrong.

Patent laws essentially aim to tell people what they can do with their own property. If someone has put together material in a certain way, or has created a composition of some sort, copyright/IP laws would say, "even though the information is now freely available, you're not allowed to apply those conceptual blueprints to your own property for an arbitrary amount of time."

The strongest argument for IP is that, without it, the incentive to create easily reproduced works would be diminished or eliminated. In this day and age, where basically any song, novel, or software can be uploaded and distributed within minutes, the need for IP must be greater than ever.

Quite frequently, we see that patent/copyright laws end up being useless, primarily because they're ignored by the general public. This is especially true with respect to software, song recordings, and written works; the government is simply powerless to prevent the distribution of this "property." Oddly, the quality of music, literature, and software doesn't appear to be in decline on the aggregate. In fact, it seems to be getting much better and more diverse.

Those responsible for creating content have found creative ways to ensure revenue streams without the help of government. Musicians have found that they make good money (while retaining their creative freedom) by touring, rather than depending on record sales. Software companies have established various ways of locking in profit, either by requiring unique login information, subscription fees, point systems, or a number of other methods. Writers have started opting for online formats (to generate ad revenue) or self-publishing, which gives the content creator a much higher percentage of the earnings.

There are trickier areas, such as the pharmaceutical industry, where the market landscape would look substantially different without IP. However, proponents of IP presume to know how the market should develop, when it should be known that any attempts to direct the market create more inefficiency than would have existed in a free market.

Many of the same people that would criticize the existence of monopolies would be just as likely to say that IP is needed, perhaps not realizing that patent laws exist solely to create monopolies on a certain product. It's becoming clear that we need to rethink IP laws. Even Ayn Rand came out in support of IP, and it has long been assumed that a capitalist system requires patent laws. In light of "the digital age," ideas that once seemed sound are coming into question.

[Edited on June 20, 2011 at 1:59 PM. Reason : ]

6/20/2011 1:57:24 PM

I suppose I didn't really make it clear from the OP, but I really wanted to focus this on non-artistic and even more specifically, non-consumer industries. Ones like pharmecuticals, technolgical, etc.

I definately agree with you, and I think you said it much better than I did that proponents of IP claim to know how the market should happen, in that they judge other systems against thier own as a "gold standard" of sorts.

Your claims do make me wonder something I hope you could address. I'm sure you would readily point out the free rider problem when talking about state provided services, I am interested why you wouldn't point it out when it is just as relevant, if not moreso, to this situation.

6/20/2011 2:54:16 PM

Quote :

"The issue of intellectual property rights boils down to a philosophical question, so "sources" wouldn't necessarily be helpful, just like one wouldn't need sources to claim that murdering people is wrong."

Yes and no. IRL, I've had many discussions when I mention "utilitarian ethics" only to get blank stares, followed by a lingering anti-intellectual sentiment from the other person. It's not that anyone NEEDS an academic model to use as a framework, but a lack of appreciation for an agreed-upon model to return to, and discuss applicability of, tends to correlate with general idiocy.

Quote :

"The strongest argument for IP is that, without it, the incentive to create easily reproduced works would be diminished or eliminated."

And here we go, we all agree upon a "model" that is perfectly rational, but that doesn't mean that it's accepted as good policy for a certain case in the real world. As you point out, the model has extremely different usefulness from one industry to another.

6/20/2011 3:19:11 PM

Quote :

"Your claims do make me wonder something I hope you could address. I'm sure you would readily point out the free rider problem when talking about state provided services, I am interested why you wouldn't point it out when it is just as relevant, if not moreso, to this situation."

Without IP protection, there would be, with 100% certainty, free riders, though I'd be reluctant to call it a problem. The other half of the "free rider problem" is that open collaboration would not only be encouraged, it'd be beneficial to all parties involved, and it would probably lead to a much greater rate of innovation than our current model.

As it stands now, pharmaceutical companies don't collaborate, as they have every reason not to. The patent system creates a "winner take all" scenario, where the first company to create a cure or treatment gets a state-sanctioned monopoly for 10 or 20 years, sometimes more. That means a pharmaceutical firm could spend years (and millions of dollars) developing a pill, and if another firm beats them to it by two weeks, their efforts were wasted.

Without IP, collaboration would have been encouraged, the pill would have ended up being created much sooner, and you wouldn't have the blatant waste of resources. You also wouldn't have people selling life saving heart pills for 5k a pop, you wouldn't have insurance covering that outrageous cost, and there would be a lot less strain on the system. Big pharma has an unbelievable amount of influence in Washington, and you can bet your ass they have a hand in molding FDA regulations in a way that is beneficial for their stockholders.

Quote :

"Yes and no. IRL, I've had many discussions when I mention "utilitarian ethics" only to get blank stares, followed by a lingering anti-intellectual sentiment from the other person. It's not that anyone NEEDS an academic model to use as a framework, but a lack of appreciation for an agreed-upon model to return to, and discuss applicability of, tends to correlate with general idiocy."

I don't think you'll find an agreed-upon model to use in this discussion. Intellectual property beliefs often stem from other beliefs concerning the nature of property ownership, i.e. what can and can't be owned. From my perspective, information is, by nature, freely distributed. Attempts by the state to restrict the use or distribution of ideas is policing thought and a violation of individual rights. If you don't believe in private ownership or individual rights, then we have to have a very different discussion.

Good Ars article here: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/03/study-markets-provide-an-alternative-to-patent-monopolies.ars

Quote :

"For all but the most difficult case, where only the market system arrived at a solution, both systems resulted in the discovery of an optimal system. The key difference seems to be that, in the market system, more of the participants finished with an optimized system. The authors present evidence that suggests that prices of the items acted to communicate information on the solution among the market's participants. "

[Edited on June 20, 2011 at 3:32 PM. Reason : ]

6/20/2011 3:21:34 PM

Quote :

"I don't think you'll find an agreed-upon model to use in this discussion. Intellectual property beliefs often stem from other beliefs concerning the nature of property ownership, i.e. what can and can't be owned. From my perspective, information is, by nature, freely distributed. Attempts by the state to restrict the use or distribution of ideas is policing thought and a violation of individual rights. If you don't believe in private ownership or individual rights, then we have to have a very different discussion. Good Ars article here: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/03/study-markets-provide-an-alternative-to-patent-monopolies.ars"

Also see, from a US researcher:
The Patent Game: Experiments in the Cathedral of Law
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1Pi4w8ddA8

I've seen plenty of coverage of research that has shown patents to be ineffective, be it through historical analysis of industries, per your example, or through other kinds of creative simulation, per my video link. That does not convince me, however, that all the research on the subject paints an overall anti-patent picture. And we certainly don't have anything close to a scientific consensus. The limitations of any given model or research finding needs to be stressed since the effectiveness of patents depend strongly on the nature of the given industry.

6/20/2011 4:58:56 PM

Quote :

"Without IP protection, there would be, with 100% certainty, free riders, though I'd be reluctant to call it a problem. The other half of the "free rider problem" is that open collaboration would not only be encouraged, it'd be beneficial to all parties involved, and it would probably lead to a much greater rate of innovation than our current model."

I don't think the benefits allow you to write the problem off so easily. Without a doubt, the burden to pay for the expensive research would discourage companies from innovating. This would be a very serious problem that the "no regulation" argument must address.

Quote :

"The limitations of any given model or research finding needs to be stressed since the effectiveness of patents depend strongly on the nature of the given industry."

I like this idea, I think my own ideas for a solution would fall closer to this. I would get rid of the coarse "across the board" patent approach and (although it would make many here sick) replace it with more regulation, industry specific regulation. We were able to do this with great success in the infancy of the computer age, I don't see why we wouldn't apply similar tactics to other industries.

6/20/2011 5:33:38 PM

^ Yeah, industry-specific seems the logical way to go, but the same industries that "need" patents are in many cases the last ones I want to have them for.

Mostly I'm concerned about the medical industry. The FDA approval of drugs, for instance, can allow a company to have exclusive rights to something that everyone could previously sell just because they went through the effort to prove that using it was safe. Honestly I don't know what legal tools are used to do this and if patents even play a role there, but patents certainly matter to major drug producers. The provision of medical care is one thing, but it's kind of different IMO from encouraging development of "new" drugs.

And best of all, take Monsanto. Although there is some room for debate, that company would pretty much crumble if patents didn't exist. They actually produce and sell a product, but they are heavily dependent on the existence on the legal framework in this nation. Granted, if you didn't have patents, maybe they would work harder on the "terminator" seeds that could never be recreated outside their own labs. But how would you balance regulation and patents in that case? I don't know.

6/20/2011 6:13:18 PM

The pharm industry is also the industry that I am most concerned about and the one I think the patent system "fails" the most for. Many here will really hate this idea, but I would like it to work similar to NASA, and to publicly fund the research. Once drugs are developed, the private market is free to produce these products as they like.

6/20/2011 6:26:18 PM

Quote :

"The alternative is the "troll performance" threads, where troll stands up in front of a crowd and engages in a war of attrition to see how long they can deflect rational refutations of their wrongheaded world view, like arronburro in the global warming and abortion threads."

Ironic, given that AGW is nothing but junk science. lol. "Hey, we've got this great model that we think explains everything. Only, it doesn't line up with observed recent data. But trust us, it's right! Now, go about dismantling your economy!"
As for abortion, where was I wrongheaded? I can't think of ANYTHING more right-headed than protecting human life. That others are on par with Hitler really doesn't change any of my thinking.

6/20/2011 6:44:01 PM

go away faggot

6/20/2011 6:55:53 PM

hahaha

6/20/2011 6:58:35 PM

Quote :

"Many here will really hate this idea, but I would like it to work similar to NASA, and to publicly fund the research. Once drugs are developed, the private market is free to produce these products as they like."

I actually like this idea, with the understanding that it be coupled with the elimination of patents as a whole. The current governmental interference in our lives to enforce patent law far exceeds the interference of taxing us and spending the money to develop pharmaceuticals.

Oh, can we also do away with the Food and Drug exclusion rules? Make the Food and Drug Administration an advisory board with labeling requirements to show whether drugs are approved or not without banning the sale of unapproved drugs.

[Edited on June 21, 2011 at 1:07 AM. Reason : ,.,]

6/21/2011 1:04:19 AM

Quote :

"Oh, can we also do away with the Food and Drug exclusion rules? Make the Food and Drug Administration an advisory board with labeling requirements to show whether drugs are approved or not without banning the sale of unapproved drugs. "

But at the same time you have the position that government research should largely replace the role of patents in today's drug industry. So should the government be playing the role of licensing the drugs and proving their safety?

Granted, I would be more highly inclined to put trust in a publicly funded safety licensing process than if it had been done by a private company. Less incentive to look at the results through rose colored glasses, almost always reports negative results, etc. But I feel like it would be a more credible case that private companies just sell unapproved drugs. Since there's no major incentive to change that, drugs in general would rarely get approved. That could be said to be a result of the funding structure, but it's hard to imagine government research keeping up with the cutting edge.

Then again, the average Joe just needs good medical care, not necessarily cutting edge. So maybe there's some amount of populism embedded in this issue. I'm already convinced that high medical bills are a simple subsidy to the rich. The poor need nothing more than an adequate support system for their doctor, and that's not what they pay for.

6/21/2011 9:06:33 AM

What about making patents into a sort of mandatory license instead of a monopoly? So your granted your patent for however many years, during those years, anyone who wants to use your patent to manufacture or distribute a product pays a set (by statute) fee per unit, with the potential to decrease the fee as the number of units produced is increased. So, using a patent that Microsoft has to produce some million copies of a software incurs something like a $5 fee per unit, where as a drug manufacturer producing some billion pills might be looking at only $0.005 per unit. Inventors can choose to license the patent directly, but everyone can go through the patent office, so effectively, the inventor can only license for less than the effective fee (or even offer a flat deal for someone as opposed to per unit fees)

By filing a patent, you are guaranteed this income from people using the patent for the duration of the patent, but equally you can't stop anyone from using the idea by setting some ridiculous license fee. The other half of this though would require a weakening of "trade secret" law to simple contract violations. So as a company your choice is, patent your idea, put it out there for everyone to benefit from and make money on people using it (as well as your own product), or keep it a trade secret, but if someone else stumbles upon it or someone leaks it, at best you can get the leaker for breach of contract.

Also, I suppose that in this case, you might have stacking patents (where company A patents something, and company B patents a new thing which in part relies on their licensed use of A's patent which has not yet expired). I suppose in this case, it might work something like an MLM scheme, where the guys at the top of the patent pyramid are making a ton of money (reward for inventing something so widely used). The difference would be that patents are always expiring, so the top of the pyramid is always being replaced.

If we were making other changes, I'd suggest a few others:

Patents follow their inventor and are non-transferable. If you don't want your employees jumping ship and taking their patents with them, you better pay them well.

Patents expire 5 years (or some portion of the original term) after the last listed inventors do, if that is shorter than the remaining term on the patent. If the inventor dies, the money from the licensing goes to the inventor's estate.

Patents also expire if after 5 years (or again some portion of the original term) after the grant date, you aren't actively selling, or using the item you've patented.

This was just something mulling in my head a few days ago so I haven't really had the time to flesh it out. I'm happy for criticism and feedback, but I think it might keep with the original intent of patents and fix a lot of what is broken today.

Quote :

"Granted, I would be more highly inclined to put trust in a publicly funded safety licensing process than if it had been done by a private company. Less incentive to look at the results through rose colored glasses, almost always reports negative results, etc. But I feel like it would be a more credible case that private companies just sell unapproved drugs. Since there's no major incentive to change that, drugs in general would rarely get approved. That could be said to be a result of the funding structure, but it's hard to imagine government research keeping up with the cutting edge."

Private safety testing can be done. It just needs to be independent of the company being tested, and needs to be a wider reaching firm than just one market. For example, look at just about any device that uses electricity you own. That little UL symbol is a private testing lab.

[Edited on June 21, 2011 at 1:29 PM. Reason : xdfg]

6/21/2011 1:26:00 PM

^ Kind of similar to what you're saying - there is a push for a new way of doing patents where you patent it and set a clear and nondiscriminatory licensing fee for someone wanting to use it.

Then it's totally take-it-or-leave it for any company interested, and since the tradeoffs are clear upfront, anyone who finds it profitable will take it.

The reason this isn't how the majority of patents are done today is because that's not what most companies have in mind. Patents are often done as just something to disadvantage their competitors. The big dogs like Microsoft, Apple, Intel, you name it, will also have coffers of patents that can be used to wield power precisely because of the ambiguity in the rulings on patents and the wording of the patents themselves. It's very hard to do anything without violating one of their patents. TWW itself is probably violating at least one of their patents, but if you get a few lawyers they'll quickly find something to disagree about.

6/21/2011 2:26:19 PM

I would prefer a more systemic change than ^^. That seems like more of a enhancement to the current system. You would face the same problem of passing over funding ideas that could provide great long term benefits but are unable to make the money necessary to fund it through the patent system.

Quote :

"The current governmental interference in our lives to enforce patent law far exceeds the interference of taxing us and spending the money to develop pharmaceuticals."

I agree completely and I'm impressed that you would say it.

Quote :

"Oh, can we also do away with the Food and Drug exclusion rules?"

I would like that research group to handle what the FDA does and perhaps streamline the entire process.

6/22/2011 5:47:44 PM

really thought someone would have posted that the house just passed a bill which changes the patent system from "first to invent" to "first to file" marking the first big change to the patent system in over 60 years.

6/27/2011 1:17:01 AM

^ Good change.

6/27/2011 1:59:18 AM